Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 27 April 2021

Select Committee on Health

Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 38 - Health (Revised)

Photo of Stephen DonnellyStephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It was in Glasgow, where they bought a private hospital and I think they bought the hotel beside it as well, so people could be rested and prepared. What I can tell the Deputy is that it is the Sláintecare team that is doing the elective hospital work and its thinking is around the day case. It is not because we do not need more inpatient beds, and we all know we do. It is really around providing the most effective healthcare possible. Part of the thinking is, first, to separate it from emergency departments, so it is planned elective care only and it does not get disrupted by emergencies coming in, and so it is physically separated, for example, like Tallaght is doing with its unit. Second, the thinking is that if we create it as day case, it is not that we are not creating additional inpatient beds because what we are doing is pulling the less complex care out of the bigger model 4 hospitals, and they can turn some of their day case into inpatient. However, it is worth reiterating, as I did to Deputy Colm Burke, that no final decisions have been made on that. I will certainly feed the views of Deputy Shortall and Deputy Burke into the team that are looking at this. As I said, I know there are strongly held views, both in the community and in the clinical communities in Cork and Galway, that the elective hospital needs to be day case and inpatient.

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